NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has launched its inaugural ‘Sustainable Healthcare Recycling & Waste Management’ framework agreement designed to help the NHS meet net zero.
The framework agreement has been developed in collaboration with Barts Health NHS Trust, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and suppliers of pioneering sustainable waste management services and technologies.
It gives NHS organisations and the public sector access to carefully vetted vendors of innovative, sustainable waste management solutions, like pyrolysis technology, on site bio-digesters and food recycling management, with the ability to buy them compliantly, cost-effectively and at pace.
The NHS’s clinical waste strategy published in March 2023, sets out NHS England’s ambition to transform the management of clinical waste by eliminating, reusing and processing it in the most cost effective and sustainable way.
It aims to achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions produced from waste management by 2032, by increasing sustainable environmentally-friendly waste management methods.
“Sustainability in healthcare waste management has moved from a ‘nice to have’ position, to a focal objective where Trusts will be required to undertake work to implement the new guidance,” says Emma Clyne, NHS SBS Principal Category Manager - Estates and Facilities at NHS SBS.
“For context, the clinical waste strategy says that every year, NHS providers produce approximately 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste - equivalent to over 400 loaded jumbo jets of waste - that is either sent to high temperature incineration or for alternative treatment. This has a significant environmental impact and is associated with high running costs and carbon emissions.”
The NHS SBS procurement framework agreement includes:
• New state-of-the-art technological solutions like pyrolysis – heating material to a high temperature without oxygen, releasing the energy trapped inside it which can then be used to heat the hospital estate.
• Aerobic bio-digesters - a form of on-site accelerated composting which can significantly reduce food waste taken off-site.
• Microwave treatment, using a heat source to decontaminate various types of medical waste, which can then be managed without high-heat incineration.
Emma adds: “Best practice waste management reduces waste, improves compliance and delivers significant cost savings from lower waste volumes. This plays a crucial role in minimising harm to the environment and increasing resource utilisation, reducing carbon generated from waste, and saving taxpayers money.
“Procurement teams at NHS Trusts, as well as in the wider public sector often operate with very stretched resources. They struggle to find the resource and capacity for specialist research as well as the ensuing procurement.
“Our framework agreement offers an easily accessible and compliant procurement route with the very latest sustainable waste management offerings and sustainable management expertise obtainable.”
